“Our dear brother,” Billy finishes.
“The lads will get this to your prince, Rosalina,” my father says, “and he’ll know what to do with it.”
I look out at the raging battle. The last thing we need is more death… but I trust Farron’s brothers. I trust my father. “Okay.”
“Only one wee problem.” Billy leans over the battlement. “Where is he?”
My heart stutters rabbit-fast, but I can’t hear it over the clangs and cries of the battle below. “I can find him; my mating bond will lead us.”
“Rosalina,” Papa says, “it’s too dangerous. You could be hurt or worse.”
I set my jaw, fighting back the fear. “Farron needs this, and I’m the only one who can locate him quickly.”
“We’ll protect you.” Billy raises a short sword from his waist.
“We’ve been training for this our whole lives!” Dominic nods.
Steeling my gaze, I stare out over the battlefield and clutch the scroll. “All right then, let’s go find the High Prince of Autumn.”
78
Farron
Heatburstsfrommyhands, sending a scorching wave over two wraiths. I spin, ducking under the sword of another and snatch its face with my fiery palm, melting its frost and bone beneath my grasp. Then I’m running again, lobbing a fireball through the air to scorch the back of the wraith attacking Dayton.
“I had that one!” Dayton calls as he slays another, his blades coated in turquoise flame.
“Trust me, there’s more than enough for all of us,” I say.
“Less chatting, more slaying.” My mother’s voice carries over the thundering hooves of her great elk. She’s the only one of us to retain her steed. Thrand caught frost from a wraith I’d let too close, and I leapt off it before the frost overtook me too. Dayton’s horse lays dead underneath a mound of massive icy bones.
Ezryn left to secure the western battlefield in an attempt to spread our strength. Though when I suggested Dayton take the eastern flank, he only rolled his eyes as if the idea of separating from me was preposterous.
I blink the sweat out of my eyes, trying to stare through the chaos of the battlefield to make sense of our numbers.There’s so many.The ground is coated with bodies and bones, blood and frost. But unlike our soldiers who have laid their lives down, Quellos’s army does not remain dead.
I stare up at him atop the hill before the field. His crown glows with a sickly green light. The bones of the wraiths we defeated jangle then rearrange, knitting themselves back together with hoarfrost.The dead won’t stay dead.
“We’re losing ground, Farron,” my mother cries as she drives her lance into the rib cage of a spindly wraith. “If we don’t do something soon, we’ll have to retreat to the city.”
As soon as we do that, they’ll overtake our walls. All the citizens inside will be lost…
No. My people trusted me to lead them to safety. I won’t let the dead take our home.
My eyes blaze as I stare up at Perth Quellos, the light of the green crown swimming in my vision. The crown…
“We have to take down their commander,” I say. “Something about that crown is changing Quellos’s magic. It’s letting him bring the dead back to life.”
“Cut off the head of the snake.” Dayton crunches a skull beneath his boot. “We’ll get you to him.”
My mother nods. “And you, my son, will send him to the pyre.”
Legions of dead stand between us and Quellos.Why did Kel abandon us?Casting spells from the side is a Farron job. Killing enemy commanders seems like a Kel job.
I force in a trembling breath. Quellos has spread frost overmylands. Entrappedmypeople in ice. Threatenedmyrule. It is me who must see this to its end.
I charge forward.
Whether by the strength of my family around me or the righteous purpose beckoning me forward, I fight with a fervor I’ve never known. Autumn’s Blessing courses through my skin, scorching ashen paths for us to follow. Dayton kills with a style that borders on elegant. And my mother’s lance is more deadly than ten swords.
